Integrated circuits are made possible by processes which produce intricately patterned material layers on substrate surfaces. Producing patterned material on a substrate requires controlled methods for removal of exposed material. Chemical etching is used for a variety of purposes including transferring a pattern in photoresist into underlying layers, thinning layers, or thinning lateral dimensions of features already present on the surface. Often it is desirable to have an etch process that etches one material faster than another facilitating, for example, a pattern transfer process. Such an etch process is said to be selective to the first material. As a result of the diversity of materials, circuits, and processes, etch processes have been developed with a selectivity towards a variety of materials.
Etch processes, deposition processes, and cleaning processes may be performed in a variety of chambers. These chambers may include components that may be used to form a capacitively-coupled plasma, or may be proximate internal chamber regions where other forms of plasma are produced, such as inductively-coupled plasma, for example. The chamber components may be configured in certain ways to reduce effects of plasma generation or precursor distribution through the chamber, but this may be at the cost of additional functionality.
Thus, there is a need for improved systems and methods that can be used to produce high quality devices and structures. These and other needs are addressed by the present technology.